PyramidHead
Contributor
This is the difference between Sanders and not only Warren, but the entirety of the contenders for the nomination:
This is what he means by "organizer-in chief", a term that evokes the working class as a sort of army, and not by accident.
Take an issue like health care reform, for example. The strategy Bernie's critics assume is the only way to do politics is basically the strategy of Obama upon his election. It went something like:
1. Get elected due in large part to grassroots efforts and a message of radical departure from political norms.
2. Immediately abandon the grassroots movement that helped you get elected.
3. Appoint political and economic establishment elites to cabinet positions.
4. Consult with these elites, as well as representatives from insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and private hospitals to craft an enormous and inscrutable bill.
5. Take the advice of corrupt insiders like Rahm Emanuel and ditch the public option, making the bill less progressive than the one Mitt Romney passed in his home state.
All of this took place over two years while there was a Democratic supermajority in Congress.
By contrast, what Sanders has in mind for political strategy departs sharply from the Obama style at step 2. First of all, he is extremely unlikely to appoint anyone to his cabinet that isn't on board with his platform. That means instead of corporate consultants writing our legislation, you would have labor leaders talking directly to workers and literally organizing in their communities. Bernie would be either at the bully pulpit or visiting districts of Congress members who are unwilling to fall in line with what their constituents want due to pressure from donors, and rally the people to make their dissatisfaction known. Public demonstrations to garner support and unify people from different professions and from different backgrounds is what Bernie was born to do. Those coalitions would send a loud and clear message to their representatives to vote for the bill or get replaced by someone who will. If that doesn't work, they would use the most powerful tool at their disposal, and start a general strike.
We have already seen how a relatively small number of workers in just one sector of the economy can quickly extract concessions from the government, as the government shutdown that carried on endlessly over funding for a racist wall was brought to a halt when airport workers decided not to work for free anymore. Imagine the same thing happening, in state after state, in all of the industries and roles that make up Bernie's donor base: bus drivers, subway attendants, warehouse workers, construction workers, food service workers, and a sizeable portion of them striking with the full support of the President of the United States. Look at the success of mass uprisings in Puerto Rico, Lebanon, and elsewhere to oust corrupt leaders and win important battles by sheer majority action. Occupy Wall Street was just the beginning; now a generation of millennials and gen-Z'ers are ready to make their political aspirations known, and they aren't scared by the word 'socialism'.
But it doesn't need to come to that all the time, because politicians will have a choice between losing their job because of a vote or losing their job because the garbage collectors are all on strike and the neighborhoods are starting to smell. They will come to understand that their position depends on being a mouthpiece for the people, and all the rich donors in the world won't keep them in office if nobody votes for them in the midterms. Progressives winning over neoliberals is becoming more and more common, red states are turning purple, and the time is ripe to finally gather all that sentiment together into an organized political force, which Bernie hopes will become the new Democratic Party.
Bernie's theory of change seems outlandish to many Americans because it places the direct coordinated action of the majority, acting in its own material interests, at the center of the process. To the technocrats who favor bipartisanship and moderation, this is gobbledygook; people are supposed to watch TV, go to work, decide which candidate is the safest, and cast a vote every 2 or 4 years accordingly. Leave the politics to the smart people, the Ivy League people, the think tanks, the PACs, the ex- or pre-lobbyists... in short, to the ruling class. Yes, you knew it was coming, this is all about class warfare. Bernie Sanders' agenda is a pie in the sky to people who are unaware that there is a class war, aware of it but comfortable in their position as relatively insulated from it, or secretly rooting for the Galactic Empire against the rebel alliance in every Star Wars movie. These correspond roughly to the proletariat, the petty bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie. For Elizabeth Warren and everyone to her right, politics is something the latter two classes take part in for the benefit of the first one, who are too stupid to understand anything and should just take whatever they can get. For Bernie Sanders, the upper classes are the ones who will have to take what they can get after the working class throws down the gauntlet.
Only one of these strategies is compatible with the scale and urgency of the problems we face, and it isn't the one that relies on shutting out the people who will be most impacted by climate change, lack of guaranteed medical coverage, and other issues people love to claim are equivalent between Sanders and Warren. They aren't, for one thing, and even if they were, only Sanders is doing the legwork to demonstrate he knows the only way to push them through is with massive popular involvement. To get there, you have to get there. You don't check the polls first to see if people are on board, you get on board and get other people to do the same. Or you get out of the way.
This is what he means by "organizer-in chief", a term that evokes the working class as a sort of army, and not by accident.
Take an issue like health care reform, for example. The strategy Bernie's critics assume is the only way to do politics is basically the strategy of Obama upon his election. It went something like:
1. Get elected due in large part to grassroots efforts and a message of radical departure from political norms.
2. Immediately abandon the grassroots movement that helped you get elected.
3. Appoint political and economic establishment elites to cabinet positions.
4. Consult with these elites, as well as representatives from insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and private hospitals to craft an enormous and inscrutable bill.
5. Take the advice of corrupt insiders like Rahm Emanuel and ditch the public option, making the bill less progressive than the one Mitt Romney passed in his home state.
All of this took place over two years while there was a Democratic supermajority in Congress.
By contrast, what Sanders has in mind for political strategy departs sharply from the Obama style at step 2. First of all, he is extremely unlikely to appoint anyone to his cabinet that isn't on board with his platform. That means instead of corporate consultants writing our legislation, you would have labor leaders talking directly to workers and literally organizing in their communities. Bernie would be either at the bully pulpit or visiting districts of Congress members who are unwilling to fall in line with what their constituents want due to pressure from donors, and rally the people to make their dissatisfaction known. Public demonstrations to garner support and unify people from different professions and from different backgrounds is what Bernie was born to do. Those coalitions would send a loud and clear message to their representatives to vote for the bill or get replaced by someone who will. If that doesn't work, they would use the most powerful tool at their disposal, and start a general strike.
We have already seen how a relatively small number of workers in just one sector of the economy can quickly extract concessions from the government, as the government shutdown that carried on endlessly over funding for a racist wall was brought to a halt when airport workers decided not to work for free anymore. Imagine the same thing happening, in state after state, in all of the industries and roles that make up Bernie's donor base: bus drivers, subway attendants, warehouse workers, construction workers, food service workers, and a sizeable portion of them striking with the full support of the President of the United States. Look at the success of mass uprisings in Puerto Rico, Lebanon, and elsewhere to oust corrupt leaders and win important battles by sheer majority action. Occupy Wall Street was just the beginning; now a generation of millennials and gen-Z'ers are ready to make their political aspirations known, and they aren't scared by the word 'socialism'.
But it doesn't need to come to that all the time, because politicians will have a choice between losing their job because of a vote or losing their job because the garbage collectors are all on strike and the neighborhoods are starting to smell. They will come to understand that their position depends on being a mouthpiece for the people, and all the rich donors in the world won't keep them in office if nobody votes for them in the midterms. Progressives winning over neoliberals is becoming more and more common, red states are turning purple, and the time is ripe to finally gather all that sentiment together into an organized political force, which Bernie hopes will become the new Democratic Party.
Bernie's theory of change seems outlandish to many Americans because it places the direct coordinated action of the majority, acting in its own material interests, at the center of the process. To the technocrats who favor bipartisanship and moderation, this is gobbledygook; people are supposed to watch TV, go to work, decide which candidate is the safest, and cast a vote every 2 or 4 years accordingly. Leave the politics to the smart people, the Ivy League people, the think tanks, the PACs, the ex- or pre-lobbyists... in short, to the ruling class. Yes, you knew it was coming, this is all about class warfare. Bernie Sanders' agenda is a pie in the sky to people who are unaware that there is a class war, aware of it but comfortable in their position as relatively insulated from it, or secretly rooting for the Galactic Empire against the rebel alliance in every Star Wars movie. These correspond roughly to the proletariat, the petty bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie. For Elizabeth Warren and everyone to her right, politics is something the latter two classes take part in for the benefit of the first one, who are too stupid to understand anything and should just take whatever they can get. For Bernie Sanders, the upper classes are the ones who will have to take what they can get after the working class throws down the gauntlet.
Only one of these strategies is compatible with the scale and urgency of the problems we face, and it isn't the one that relies on shutting out the people who will be most impacted by climate change, lack of guaranteed medical coverage, and other issues people love to claim are equivalent between Sanders and Warren. They aren't, for one thing, and even if they were, only Sanders is doing the legwork to demonstrate he knows the only way to push them through is with massive popular involvement. To get there, you have to get there. You don't check the polls first to see if people are on board, you get on board and get other people to do the same. Or you get out of the way.
